Returned service clubs have embraced Facebook and Twitter - and a controversial sponsorship deal with gambling giant SkyCity - to reach out to younger New Zealanders for this year's Poppy Day appeal.
The Returned and Services Association (RSA) has set up web-based donation systems this year for people who no longer walk past collectors on Poppy Day this Friday, or who don't carry cash if they do.
Twitter accounts have been set up to lead people to RSA donation sites, and the Auckland association has joined Facebook. The deal with SkyCity will bring out the SkyCity Breakers and Warriors players to collect for the RSA on Friday around the Sky Tower.
"We are trying to reinvent ourselves," said Auckland RSA president Graham Gibson, a 62-year-old Vietnam veteran who helped to stage a "coup" against the club's previous leadership a dozen years ago to stop club funds being invested in Five Star Finance, which later went into receivership.
"One of the things the RSA has to do is we have to change, we have to get up with the 21st century," he said. "This is totally foreign to what RSAs have done, let me tell you. We are giving it our best shot and trying to be relevant."